Why Can’t Minimal mines minimalism for its humorous side by pointing to a latent absurdity hiding beneath its cool demeanour. The exhibition rejects the assumption that minimal art requires solely serious, solemn contemplation, and embraces the more intuitive, jovial, and personal pleasures that occur when one has fun with the comically utopian ambitions of unitary forms. Playing with the forms, traditions, and incongruities of multiple levels of minimalism, the presented works elude rational comprehension, repositioning conceptual value to make room for the types of recognition made possible through levity, play, humour, and sentiment.

Produced by the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the University of Toronto Art Centre. The circulation of this exhibition is made possible through a grant from the Ontario Arts Council's National and International Touring Program.

Contemporary Calgary is located on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot and the people of the Treaty 7 region in Southern Alberta. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.